The Quillian Sector Page 8

  He said, "Verification of the report from the Belzdek. Negative as stated. The Wilke and the Ychale have been eliminated." Reports from cybers fed through central intelligence and passed on directly to his brain. Another report which he did not mention and an urgency about which he would think later.

  "Which leaves the Entil and the Frame, master."

  "Both traders and both operating in the Quillian Sector." Caradoc looked at the acolyte. It was never too soon to test the desired ability, and never a mistake to encourage its development. Practice in extrapolation, as in so many other things, led to perfection. "Your conclusions?"

  For a moment the youth hesitated, then made his decision. "The Entil master."

  A guess? If so, the habit must be eliminated. If not, the steps leading to the deduction could be elucidated.

  "Explain."

  "Both vessels are traders, master, but the Frame headed initially for Pontia. From there, it would be logical for it to make for Ninik, and then on to Swenna."

  "Why?"

  "The relative values of available cargoes. Pontia is a producer of leathers, oils, furs and feathers, articles of bone, concentrates of glandular excretions. There is a market for such things on Ninik. There, a cargo of tools and electronic components could be bought for sale on Swenna."

  "Which is mostly an agricultural world." Caradoc nodded. The reasoning had been sound, but it betrayed a simplistic grasp of the essential elements of the situation. "And from Swenna, the Frame would have headed outward to the edge of the Quillian Sector? Correct?"

  "Yes, master."

  "Unless, of course, a cargo of high value was offered for immediate transport to a different world than those which you mentioned. Or a group of passengers bought a charter. Or the captain, because of some intuition, made a diversion. Or a local electronic storm forced the navigator to change course." Or that Dumarest, and the luck riding with him, had, by his mere presence, altered the natural sequence of logical events and introduced a "wild" factor, as he seemed to have done so often before; a thing Caradoc didn't mention. Instead he continued, "You appreciate how the most obvious pattern can be distorted by the smallest of unexpected events. Such events must always be included in any prediction you may make. In this case, however, you are correct. Dumarest is not on the Frame."

  And had never been on it-a fact he had gained from his recent contact with central intelligence. Which meant that unless he had left the vessel, Dumarest must still be on the Entil.

  Caradoc took a step closer to the shimmering display. Somewhere among the suns, the dots representing the ship would be moving, halting at worlds which he saw only as minute flecks of color. Short journeys, some taking only a few subjective hours. Short stopovers-no trader made a profit by hugging dirt. Destinations determined by the availability of cargoes or the needs of paying passengers. The ship moving in a pattern so erratic as to be almost purely random.

  And, hunting it, Leo Bochner was intent on finding his prey.

  He stood beneath a sky of maroon shot with clouds of umber, which shifted to burn with abrupt, coruscating brilliance catching the eye and filling the heavens with breathtaking splendor. Clouds made of millions of reflective particles which caught the rays of the rising sun and hurled them to all sides in sheets and blazes of luminous effulgence. A kaleidoscope of broken rainbows which would dimmish as the day progressed and the dawn wind died, to return at sunset when again the winds would blow and the drifting mirrors would paint the firmament with poetry in light. An artist's dream and an awesome spectacle which, even now, was being recorded for the inhabitants of a mist-shrouded world a score of parsecs distant.

  Bochner strolled to where Gale Andrei sat with her recording apparatus, her slim, lithe figure snug in form-fitting fabrics, the material delineating her petite femininity. A figure overwhelmed, it seemed, by the bulk of the apparatus which aimed wide lenses at the sky; an impression corrected by the deft motion of her slender hands as she adjusted verniers. The machine was the servant, and the woman its master, as she worked to balance scope and intensity. Too high a register in the lower end of the spectrum and the shimmering, ethereal loveliness of the violets would be dulled. Too much emphasis on the blues and the somber sullenness of the reds would lose their impact. Too high a level of brilliance would lessen fine detail and too dark an image would blunt sensory appreciation.

  An attention to detail which had provided her with fame and wealth and an enviable reputation.

  Bochner waited until she finally sighed and sat back in her chair, massaging her hands to ease the tension of tired muscles.

  "Success, Gale?"

  "Leo!" She smiled as she saw him. "Yes, I think so. Did you catch that interplay over the western horizon a few minutes ago? It was superb! That recording alone will sell at least a hundred thousand copies on Eltania."

  "And on Phenge?"

  "Phenge? No."

  "A world of fog and misty shadows?"

  "You'd think they'd snap up anything connected with light and beauty," she admitted. "I made that mistake five years ago-a recording of the ice waterfalls of Brell. The sun hits them at just the right angle twice a year, and if conditions are right, the result is fantastic. All the colors ever imagined mixed in the wildest profusion. It took me two years to get it just right, and when I did, I headed straight for Phenge. They weren't interested. They liked their mist and shadows and darkness and didn't want brightness and color. I doubt if I sold more than a score of recordings. Well, a girl learns."

  "We all learn." Bochner glanced at the sky. "But some of us tend to forget. You've been out here since long before dawn and it's time you had something to eat. I've ordered a meal for the two of us and it's waiting for you to enjoy it. Ready?"

  She hesitated, searching the sky, then rose from her chair and shrugged.

  "You're right, Leo. I'll get nothing more until sunset. No!"

  She moved to prevent him lifting her equipment. "I'll manage."

  A proud woman, he thought, as he followed her to the hotel. And a strong one. She carried the heavy apparatus with apparent ease. As he would carry his own if he was on a hunt, the pack on his back and the rifle at the ready, magazine loaded, sights adjusted, safety catch released-the mechanism an extension of himself as the missile it could hurl was an extension of his arm, his will.

  To kill. To wait and savor the moment. To feel the godlike power cradled in his arms. To watch the target-the woman, for example. If he were about to shoot her, where would he aim? A few inches above the upper curve of her buttocks, he decided. The bullet sent to drive into the slight concavity at the base of her spine. To smash, to break, to shock, to kill. She would fall instantly, her head unmarked and suitable for mounting as a trophy.

  He could visualize it set against its background of polished wood.

  A small, round head, wreathed in a soft cloud of rich, brown hair. The eyes would stare from beneath slanting eyebrows, brown and sharply appraising, touched by a master hand to give them the semblance of life. The mouth would be slightly open to reveal the inner gleam of neat, white teeth, the lips themselves full and intriguing in their implied sensuality. The jut of the chin, with its shallow cleft. The slender column of the neck. The ears. The high forehead. The…

  "Leo!" He blinked, instantly alert, as she called to him. "Daydreaming?"

  "Thinking. Wondering how much longer we shall have to wait."

  "It can't be long now." She set down her equipment and stretched as if unconscious of the way the gesture enhanced the firm thrust of her breasts. "Today, tomorrow, what does it matter?"

  "It doesn't, if you're working." Bochner led the way to where a table stood beside a window, its surface loaded with glass and cutlery, china and covered dishes. As they sat, a waiter hurried forward to pour them both cups of fragrant tisane. "But what is there for me to do on Kumetat? If any game exists in the wilderness, it is small and relatively harmless. Suitable only for the training of beginners in the art of assessing the envir
onment and location of the lair."

  "And the stalk?"

  He glanced at her and smiled. "The stalk! What can be better? The art of pitting your mind and strength, your skill and cunning, against another. A beast which would kill you if given the chance. A creature armed and armored by nature against which you are weak and defenseless aside from your own intelligence, the power of your mind."

  "And, naturally, of your gun," she said dryly. "We must never forget the gun, must we?"

  "You don't approve?"

  "Of killing animals? No."

  "Of hunting?"

  "Of a stalk where, as you say, it is mind pitted against mind and cunning against cunning, yes. My father used to hunt when I was young and he took me with him when I was old enough to keep up. But he never carried a gun. He used a camera. It was enough to get up close and record the event. The fun, he used to say, was in the chase. The stalk. Any fool can kill."

  He said blandly, "Of course. Now, may a fool offer you some refreshment? Slices of meat, cooked in a piquant sauce, and highly recommended by the chef? This compote of fruits, honey and nuts? A slice of bread coated with spiced seeds? An egg-they are worth trying. Or-" He broke off, looking at the hand she had placed on his own.

  "Leo, I'm sorry."

  "For calling me a fool?"

  "You're not that, and we both know it. It's just that, well, a man with a gun never seems to give an animal a sporting chance. He stands back and fires and that's it, if he's any shot at all. Where's the danger?"

  "For a man facing a beast which can't reach or hurt him-none," he admitted. "Such work is butchery. But to hunt a beast you must hit in exactly the right place with the single shot which is all time will allow, and first to track it to a point where it is at home and you are not-that isn't work for fools."

  "Or for men?"

  Too late, she tried to cover her distaste and, for a moment, he felt the anger rise within him; the burning rage which had always been his unconscious reaction to criticism and which, uncontrolled, could lead him to kill. Had led him to kill; the act itself a catharsis, easing as it cleansed-a luxury he could not at this time afford. Yet, it was hard to master his anger. That this mere recorder of transient spectacles should dare to deride him and what he represented! To mock the grim essentials of life itself! To ignore the fundamental truth which had accompanied mankind from the beginning and would stay with him until the end. How could she be such an ignorant fool?

  And yet, looking at her as he reached for syrup and poured it over the chopped vegetables and prepared cereal in his bowl, he found it difficult to recognize her stupidity. Had the words been a mask? A test? A probe to trigger a reaction? Was she also, in her way, a hunter, and he her prey? Was she the bait skillfully offered to be withdrawn should he strike too fast or come too close?

  Inwardly, he bared his teeth in a smile which was a tiger's snarl. If so, she had met her match. It was a game in which he did not lack experience.

  He said, "Men do what they must. Some fight. Some hunt. Some kill. Always there must be those who hunt and those who are hunted. It is a law of nature."

  "Yes," she said, and added in a peculiarly strained tone, "Life is a continuous act of violence."

  "Of course. To live, it is necessary to kill." He gestured at the table, the plate of eggs, the dish of meat. The movement left no need for words. "We grow too serious. You record the beauty which you see and I, too, in a way, seek to provide a similar experience to those who are willing to pay for it. For death, in essence, is also beauty. As all great catastrophes are; fires, floods, volcanoes-"

  "Destroyers," she said, musingly. "And I suppose the extinction of a personal universe could be regarded in such a light. After all, to the one involved, no catastrophe could be greater. The total erasure of all a living thing held to be real. An end. A termination." She shivered despite the warmth of the day. "Let's not talk about it."

  A reluctance which did not match Bochner's assessment of her character. She was nothing if not strong, yet she had revealed a certain sensitivity he found interesting. Was it a mask to hide her real personality?

  He remembered a predator on Rhius which spread false trails of pungent scent when pursued; exudations which contained subtle pheromones so that, entranced, those intent on the kill suddenly found themselves helpless victims to their imagined prey.

  Was the girl such a one?

  Did it matter if she was?

  The afternoon, he decided, after she had bathed and changed and taken a little rest. When the sun had passed its zenith and the air still with sultry heat. She would be bored, restless, willing to indulge in a new experience. Intrigued by his attentions, and half expecting him to call, as call he would. To sit in her room, her lair, to talk with her for awhile, to touch, to let the ancient magic work its biological charm and, even if she struggled, he would take her. He would make his symbolical kill.

  But before the meal was over, the air quivered to the roar of manmade thunder as the Entil came in to land.

  Chapter Six

  The dancer still rode with them, as did the seller of nostrums and the dealer in items of death. The engineers had gone together with the time-served contract man, a scarred mercenary taking their place. Charl Zeda was a man who had lost a hard-won stake in a barren mine and was now headed back to richer worlds, whose rulers could afford the luxury of war.

  Sitting beside the minor historian, he scowled at his cards. The game was poker and he did not play it well.

  "Two," he said. "No, make it three."

  A pair then, and he'd decided against holding a kicker. Dumarest dealt, watching as the man picked up the cards, noting the scarred face, the eyes, the hands. The face was a mask, the eyes blinded windows, but the hands betrayed him. He had not improved his hand.

  "You?"

  The historian took one. The dancer two. The dealer in death had passed, and so had Fele Roster. Gale Andrei had not joined the play.

  Leo Bochner said, "I'll play these."

  A bluff? It matched the impression Dumarest had of the man. He had not opened the bidding but that meant little-a man with a pat hand could have free choice. He had raised before the discards, a small sum which bought him the right to raise again if given the chance, but the others had merely called. Now he sat, his smooth face bland, his eyes a little amused, as if he were an adult pandering to children. A man killing time and unconcerned whether or not he won. A man who could be trying to buy the pot.

  Dumarest glanced at it, then at his own hand. The three lords he held should win if his calculations had been correct. The single card the historian had drawn showed he held two pairs, or had tried to fill a flush or complete a straight. From his reaction he had done neither nor had he matched either of his pairs. The dancer had played true to form, taking a wild chance and hoping for impossible odds to favor her hand. She could have gained similar cards to his own, but they would be weaker. Bochner was the unknown factor.

  Dumarest watched him while appearing to study his cards. A hunter, now heading to worlds outside the Quillian Sector-the information he'd gained about the man had been small. His appearance told more; tall, smooth, his face bland, only the eyes gave a hint as to his nature. Eyes which were too steady, which held too long, as if the man were afraid ever to lessen his attention, as if he had long since learned that nothing was quite what it seemed. The eyes of a man who emitted a perpetual challenge-the holding of a stare until the other dropped his eyes.

  And then?

  Dumarest had met others with such a trait; fighters risking their lives in the arena with ten-inch naked blades. Men who had developed tricks in order to survive, who would hold a stare and maintain it until their opponents looked away, darting in as they did so, taking advantage of the movement to strike, to kill, to win.

  But the man was a hunter, a friend of the woman, Gale Andrei, her lover, perhaps. It was natural that a hunter should have such eyes. Natural that he had the ability to sit as if made of stone. Natural that
he should have been waiting on Kumetat?

  The mercenary had opened. Now he thrust money into the pot. "Ten."

  The historian hesitated, then threw in his hand. The dancer raised, light flashing from her gemmed hands as she doubled the bet. Bochner glanced at Dumarest.

  "No limit?"

  "None."

  "Then I'll call and raise one hundred."

  "You bastard!" Furious, the dancer threw down her cards. She had quit out of turn but no one objected. "Players like you ruin the game!"

  Bochner ignored her. Ignored, too, the mercenary who had dropped his cards to the baize and was obviously waiting to throw them in. "Well, Earl?"

  On the face of it, a simple request as to whether Dumarest would call, raise or stack his hand, but meeting the cool appraisal of Bochner's eyes, he sensed it to be far more than that. Would he meet the challenge? Call the potential bluff? Face the enemy or run? Use his own skill and cunning to match that of his adversary? Was he willing to take a risk? Did he prefer always to be safe? Dared he admit the possibility of defeat?

  Did he have courage? Did he have guts?

  Dumarest checked the pot. Bochner's raise had almost doubled it which meant allowing for what he'd put in earlier, he would be getting back over fifty per cent return on his money. A good investment for a few minutes work, and one favored by gamblers who saw a chance to use the weight of their money to buy the pot.

  Dumarest said, "I'll call and raise another hundred."

  A chance, but a calculated one, and it was time to discover the man's method of play. His hand could be stronger, but he had drawn only one card and Bochner could think he held less than he did. A single pair, even-a bluff took many forms.

  "A hundred?" Bochner pursed his lips, one hand falling to toy with the coins before him, his eyes never leaving Dumarest's face. An old trick, to clink metal or rustle paper or allow chips to make their small drummings while watch was kept for the small, telltale signs of betrayal. The tension of the lips, the movements of the eyes, the impatience, the sweat, the very odor of a man under tension, of a man thirsting for the kill. "A hundred," he said again, this time not making it a question. Coins rose in his hand, "I think, in that case, I'll-well, I'll just give it to you."